Texas Tech's Sustainable Agriculture Project

Published 04/14 2014 01:33PM

Updated 04/14 2014 06:01PM

As part of their thesis projects, an interdisciplinary team made up of Teresia Mbogori (Nutritional Science), Michael Kanyi (Agriculture Education), Kyle Tengler (Plant and Soil Science) and Daniel Cunningham (Plant and Soil Science) are finalists (out of 250 college entries) in a national agriculture innovation contest, sponsored by philanthropist Howard Buffet, for a change to win $100,000.

Their team “Dryland Agroecology” has designed a system which focuses on alleviation of food insecurity in arid areas. Members of Their team will be living and working in one of the most arid and remote regions of Kenya in an attempt to increase food security and provide potable water to the Turkana tribe. They are currently experiencing a devastating drought. Infant mortality rates as well as childhood malnutrition rates are readily increasing.

In the competition, there is also a $15,000 dollar "Audience choice" award for the team with the most Facebook votes. They went from dead last last week to 5th place but are still getting beat by so much and need help getting the word out to the West Texas community. (UCLA, the University of Wisconsin, Ohio State, and Yale are beating us right now)